I finally took the plunge and started to upgrade my HobbyZone Super Cub R/C airplane with ailerons. This will let me do lots of new aerobatics, including rolls, the split-S, Immelmans, Cuban 8′s, and others. I’ve photodocumented the process for your enjoyment.
This weekend I upgraded my HobbyZone Super Cub R/C plane to use the Spektrum DX6 radio. I started by tearing out all the proprietary HobbyZone electronics. This includes the big black box (which is a receiver and speed controller), and the slow, huge ParkZone servos. To replace them, I used two of the four servos that came with my DX6 radio, the AR6000 receiver that also came with the radio, and an Electrifly C-7 speed control.
I mounted the AR6000 receiver on the side of the cockpit with a bit of velcro, like this:
Read on for details…
I finally got the X-port drop module for my HobbyZone Super Cub and took to the skies with a parachute man on-board. Here’s a small video of his decent. The quality isn’t that great, so my apologies.
I bought a pair of Dubro snow skis from my local hobby shop and strapped them on my R/C Hobbyzone Super Cub today. We got about 6 inches of snow yesterday and I took to the flying field today. I was only able to get up in the air from a rolling (or sliding) take off twice, and most landings were pretty ugly. Sorry for the poor video quality and the lame commentary from the camera man. Enjoy.
My friend Steve (who has appeared on this blog before) took his newly built GWS Tiger Moth R/C plane out for its maiden flight today after about 15 hours assembling it. His very first flight lasted only 4 seconds, and resulted in disaster. After hand-launching it, the plane climbed at too steap of an angle, and ended up stalling and falling straight to the ground. It hit so hard that the fuselage and both wings snapped. The propeller shaft was embedded several inches into the ground, and both blades of the prop broke. Apparently the center of gravity was too far toward the plane’s tail, causing it to nose up, and stall. I think it’s fixable, but it’s still a hard hit on the man’s morale. Good luck fixing it Steve!
After a few solid crashes with my new RC plane, I noticed that its battery box started to come loose. It’s a HobbyZone Super Cub, and even a semi-rough landing on thick grass can cause it to come loose. Read on for pictures and an explanation of how I solved the problem.
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Through painful personal experience, I’ve learned the best techniques for freeing your RC airplane from the evil clutches of mother nature’s best weapon against pilots: trees. Read on and I’ll share with you the pearls of wisdom that helped me libreate my HobbyZone Super Cub after 3 long days of arboreal bondage.
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I strapped my Kodak EasyShare C340 camera to the side of my HobbyZone Super Cub today and flew over Grandview Park in Provo, Utah. You can skip the first 1.5 minutes or so. I was taping the camera to the plane during that time. This video features two loops and one death spiral that almost caused the ground to come up and crash into my plane. I flew at about 5:00pm, so the sun causes lots of glare. This was my first successful attempt at aerial video, so enjoy:
Michael Torrie created a really handy tool to save your RC plane’s propellers from a spinning death on impact. It’s called a prop saver and it’s based on the “elastic rules, static drules” principle. Read on for pictures and explanation:
After repairing my Super Cub from my first crashes, I ventured onto the flying field again today, this time with the help of an experienced veteran flier, Michael Torrie. Thanks to Michael’s help, the experience was almost totally positive. I learned to land! I also got some much needed practice at controlling my turns, rolls, pitch, and throttle. I had a great time. Once a gust of wind threatened to crash my Super Cub into a concrete parking lot, but thanks to some tips from Mr. Torrie, I was able to recover and fly her to safety. Read on for pictures and details.